Isabella Strahan, the daughter of Michael Strahan, is displaying signs of vulnerability as she begins chemotherapy treatment after the discovery of a brain tumor.
The student and model, who is 19 years old, uploaded the sixth edition of her YouTube series on Wednesday. In this series, she has been chronicling her health journey since she had emergency surgery in October of last year to remove a massive medulloblastoma, which is a form of cancerous tumor, from her cerebellum.
Isabella is seen in the video blog lying in a bed at the Duke University Hospital Cancer Center in North Carolina, where she is getting ready for surgery to have her chemotherapy port inserted. A surgical procedure will be performed to implant the device, and it will be linked to a vein in the upper chest region of the patient. This will allow medical professionals to take blood and administer therapies without the need for a needle poke.
In a mocking tone, Isabella said, “So I’m getting my port placed today, which is a device that goes on your chest for administering chemotherapy, getting my blood drawn, and all that fun stuff.” “No, I’m not too excited.”
After that, the college student gets ready to get an intravenous line, despite the fact that she admits it is “not my favorite” and “something I don’t want to do.” While taking a deep breath and clutching a stress ball, she kindly requested that a countdown be performed before to the insertion of the needle by her medical professionals.
She responded, “It didn’t hurt that bad,” after obviously straining through the agony of the needle. “It didn’t hurt that horrible.”
On the other hand, Isabella’s intravenous line did not remain in place, and she was had to repeat the whole operation.
According to her, “There are times when it is difficult to locate my veins, which is why they had to bring in an ultrasound to determine where they are.” “I’m relieved that’s over.”
After that, Isabella’s video blog showed her having a break during the day and playing cards with her aunt while she prepared for more testing and therapy. It has been a challenging day, she added, but she has managed to retain a grin on her face throughout the encounter.
“A renal test is what I’m waiting for. Since it requires blood draws at certain intervals, I’m just wasting time,” she added.
As she said, “It’s a busy day.” “This kidney issue is never enjoyable, so I had an intravenous line inserted. Getting well after my port surgery is not at all enjoyable. I am now wearing a wire in my chest. First, they inject radioactive dye into my body, and then they take blood from me, then they do an electrocardiogram, then they take more blood from me, and last, they perform an MRI on me. As a result, this is a very busy day.
Because of the port insertion procedure, Isabella informed her mother that she is experiencing a lot of pain in her chest and that her neck is in a lot of pain.
She was heard saying in the video tape, “Not the most fun.”
The first time Isabella disclosed her illness was during a program on Good Morning America, when she was accompanied by her father. As a student at the University of Southern California, she began getting headaches, which she originally ascribed to vertigo. In October, she was given a diagnosis of the disease, which she had been experiencing since the beginning of her freshman year.
The adolescent described her symptoms to Robin Roberts, saying, “I definitely noticed headaches, nausea, and couldn’t walk straight.” Her health deteriorated on October 25 when she awoke in the wee hours of the morning “throwing up blood.” This was the moment when her condition took a turn for the worst. She was strongly pushed by her family to seek medical assistance as soon as possible.
When Isabella was examined by medical professionals, they found that she had acquired a tumor in the back of her brain that was four centimeters in size and bigger than a golf ball. On October 27, a day before she would have been 19 years old, she was diagnosed with a mass that required immediate surgical removal at Cedars-Sinai.
Following the completion of her surgical procedure, Isabella was subjected to a month of rehabilitation in addition to experiencing many rounds of radiation therapy. “I got to ring the bell yesterday,” she informed Roberts, who had survived cancer and was 63 years old. “It was wonderful… Due to the fact that it had been thirty sessions and six weeks had passed, it was really excited.
Since then, she has been recording her experience in a YouTube series that she established in order to raise money for Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center.
The fact that it has been kept hidden for what seems like two months is something that is absolutely challenging. On Good Morning America, Isabella said, “I don’t want to hide it anymore because it’s hard to always keep it in as a secret.” “I hope to just kind of be a voice, and be [someone] who maybe [those who] are going through chemotherapy or radiation can look at.”